While the two-wheeled Tour de France got under way in Yorkshire over the weekend, the maritime version got off to a great start in Dunkerque with a breezy opening day on Saturday July 4th and a satisfying, but no less challenging second day on Sunday for the Oman Sail team. The tour will span a total of eight stopovers along the French coast, with a final destination planned to be reached on July 27th.
The English Channel gave the nine-boat fleet a battering on the opening day of the Tour de France a la Voile on Saturday with 30-knot gusts across the racecourse pushing the sailors to the max for the first day of in port racing.
The mixed Omani and European crew on the Oman Sail M34 held their own against the favourites on Groupama and Courier Dunkerque for the three races on the opening day, making only one major boat handling error that cost them the lead on the last race of the day. They amply made up for that on Sunday however in the lighter conditions and pouring rain, winning the fifth and final race of the day to end the weekend and start the first offshore leg to Dieppe in third place overall.
Nasser Al Mashari who is no stranger to the top of the leaderboard being the bowman on Extreme Sailing Series defending champion The Wave, Muscat was happy with their opening results. The season goal is for a podium finish and the team has made a first small step towards achieving that over the weekend: “We have had a good first couple of days. Saturday was a bit of a warm up and we made some mistakes which we have now identified and know how to avoid, Sunday we were much more comfortable on the racecourse and are pleased with the results,” he said, adding: “We are keen to get the first of the offshore legs under our belts and to get into the rhythm of the event. It is a long month ahead so we will be pacing ourselves carefully while pushing as hard as we can to achieve the results that we want.”
The team spent what was left of Sunday resting up ahead of the first offshore leg of the month-long event that takes the fleet from Dunkerque to Dieppe, then Granville and Roscoff in the North of France before it is shipped overland to Roses in Spain on the Mediterranean in mid-July. The race then restarts and the competition heads to Gruissan, then Hyeres and finishes in Nice on the Cote d’Azur at the end of the month.
The start of offshore leg 1 on Sunday night was at 20:00 CET and the fleet is expected to arrive in Dieppe during the early afternoon on Monday after a 116 nautical mile race from Dunkerque. Conditions were expected to be a 15-knot westerly.
